Empty Cup

Woke up and for the first time the animals were gone,

Our clocks are ticking now so before our time is gone.
We could get a house and some boxers on the lawn,
we could make babies and accidental songs.
I know I've been a liar and I know I've been a fool,
I hope we didn't break it but I'm glad we broke the rules.
My cave is deep now yet your light is shining through,
I cover my eyes still all I see is you.
I know that I've left you,
In places of despair.
I know that I love you,
so please throw down your hair.
At night I trip without you,
and hope I don't wake up,
'cause waking up without you
is like drinking from an empty cup.

Ten Years

Inside this new love, die.

Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick clouds.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.

I love you mom.

Overturned

We are a nation that believes that every man and women is endowed by their creator with inalienable rights and those rights are guarded and sustained by the constitution, not by government officials, not by elected officials and certainly not by ballot initiative. Our rights are fundamental, they are the birthright of every American. That's why we challenged in a court of law the flawed and unconstitutional arguments that long have been used to deny Americans their rights. That gay marriage, a love between two adults is somehow a danger to society, that how we are born, our sexual orientation, not our love or personal commitment, somehow defines a marriage and that state sponsored discrimination is somehow justified and should be institutionalized.

With respect to marriage and after a lengthy trial, a fair trial, the court rejected the false logic that has been used for so many years to rationalize that blatant discrimination. But this trial did more than expose that false logic, it embraced the fundamental American values of freedom and fairness, it upheld the notion that the greatness of this country lies in the ability of each successive generation to broaden the scope of freedom, to deepen the notion of liberty and to strengthen the very principle of justice. Today's decision affirms that under the constitution a government of the people by the people and for the people cannot discriminate against the people.

There is another powerful consequence of this decision that I hope all Americans take into account, today there are millions of gay people across the country: they are your neighbors, your friends and your family, they see how marriage strengthens the bonds of family and community and they wonder, can they ever have that same strength and stability? Or will their government continue to say that marriage is not for them? Today's decision gives gay Americans the hope and strength and comfort that they too can have a future filled with love, commitment and shared responsibility. And so today we begin the process of saying to millions of people who are made to feel ostracized, besieged, bullied and ashamed of how god made them... be who you are, love who you love, and marry who you wish to marry.

As gay and straight citizens take to the streets in celebration here in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and New York I know there are millions who must celebrate quietly across America. Places where merely taking the hand of a loved one still feels like a revolutionary act. To those quiet millions, to the teenager in Bakersfield who aches for acceptance, to the college student in Salt Lake who only seeks liberty and equality, to the couple in Topeka who longs to openly share their commitment and love - this victory is for you. Because in ending the public sanctioning of discrimination in our law, we render unacceptable the private discrimination you must bear.

This is not the only victory needed to close that gap between the lives you lead and the lives you deserve, but it is a critical victory, one that honors the principles that define America . The principles that stirred a convention in Seneca Falls, the principles that fueled tireless marches through Selma, Birmingham and Washington DC, the principles that sparked the fires of resistance at the Stonewall Inn and the principles that inspire us in this urgent struggle to uphold the right to life, liberty, love and the pursuit of happiness. We will continue to stand up and fight for these principles, for these founding constitutional rights of all Americans until we truly are one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chad Griffin
President- American Foundation for Equal Rights

Raw Sexuality

It's a thing...

I Am, I Am Not

I’m drenched

in the flood
which has yet to come

I’m tied up
in the prison
which has yet to exist

Not having played
the game of chess
I’m already the checkmate

Not having tasted
a single cup of your wine
I’m already drunk

Not having entered
the battlefield
I’m already wounded and slain

I no longer
know the difference
between image and reality

Like the shadow
I am

And

I am not

Uncovered

The majestic curve of a river cutting through rolling plains can be seen in the enigmatic expanse of the spine's journey across a back. The monumental simplicity of a single atom is no more awe inspiring than the ridges and valleys, lines and curves of the human neck. The towering power of a mountain is held within the stunning peaks of a bottom laid bare. The mysterious draw of the moons path across the sky hints at the pilgrimage of the eye as it wanders across the sweep of a leg.

Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story.

She arches her body like a cat on a stretch. She smells of the sea. She smells of rockpools when I was a child. She keeps a starfish in there. I crouch down to taste the salt, to run my fingers around the rim. She opens and shuts like a sea anemone.

In the heat of her hands I thought, This is the campfire that mocks the sun. This place will warm me, feed me and care for me. I will hold on to this pulse against other rhythms. The world will come and go in the tide of a day but here is her hand with my future in its palm.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

Photos by Stan Trampe, to see more click here .
Selected quotes written by Jeanette Winterson.

Eccentricities

They refuse to see the world through the rose colored glasses of the masses nor through the cynical spectacles of the disenchanted. Rather they watch reality unfold as if on a psychedelic journey - finding deeper, more profound dimensions than most people imagine possible, finding inspiration in the ordinary. They exist on the fringes of society, never quite fitting in to the social mainstream of everyday life, usually preferring it that way. Astonishingly simple in their miraculousness and surprisingly intricate in their simplicities they inspire us and we, in turn, inspire them. Some call them strange, some call them crazy, some say they are fucked up, others say they are eccentric, most find them confusing, I find them beautiful.

They are artists in the purest sense of the word, masters of the amazing they are capable of drinking deeply from the wellspring of the void. The works they create speak to the depths of my soul, calling to that part of me that each of us share, the unconscious mind that is, in a word, human. The mediums through which they touch my life vary, from poetry to paintings, from music to movies, yet the manner in which their magic has shaped me is penetratingly universal. To my mind they are more enlightened, their souls have swam in the abyss and have discovered a higher state of being. Through the power of their vision they pull me through the looking glass, carrying me along on the wave of their eccentricity...

The words swim before me as the language fades, replaced by an immense dreamscape. I am carried along by the river as my mind wanders across mountains and meadows, through forests and plains. The landscape curves about me and the fathomless beauty of the poet's imagination consumes me entirely.

As I study the oil soaked canvas my thoughts sprout wings and take flight, lifting from my mind and soaring from this world. The power of those thoughts and emotions pull away the curtains of ignorance from my sight and lay bear to me the majesty and mystery of existence. Though the span of a thousand years separates us I am taken by the hand to unknown places, innumerable worlds, lifetimes unimagined.

Standing in a crowd the vibrations and tone fill my body, shaking the mortar that holds my soul in place, filling me so completely that there is no room left for my conscious self. I lift away on a crescendo, my body and the crowd are left behind as I drift along the current of sound. Impressions are lost within me and I lose myself inside of them. A journey spanning the heavens, I am the same yet fundamentally I am changed.